The Archive

BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN
WITH MAX COHEN AND CHRISTIAN HALL

Happy Wednesday, and we hope you’re enjoying your week. 

A few programming notes from us:

→ We’ll have a brown bag lunch tomorrow for Premium Members at 1:30 p.m. We’ll begin to try to wrap our heads around all the news of the next month. Join us to talk about our latest reporting. Register here

→ The Lookahead will be back Sunday — and we’ll have a new, revamped look and feel. We’re very lucky to have CNN’s Phil Mattingly join us this Sunday at 6 p.m. Register here.

→ ICYMI: We are very excited about our newest editorial product, The Bounceback. The Bounceback profiles how local leaders handled Covid and the post-pandemic economic recovery in cities and states. We’ve profiled Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and San Francisco Mayor London Breed. Read how these two leaders are focused on the economic recovery. Sneak peek: Next week we’ll feature Oklahoma City mayor David Holt.

→ We’ll be back to three editions each day beginning Monday.

THE CANVASS

Fresh results from our poll of senior Capitol Hill aides

We wanted to use this relatively slow week (fingers crossed, knock on wood, etc.) to dig in a bit to The Canvass, our tracking poll of senior Capitol Hill aides powered by the Locust Street Group.

Infrastructure

→ 69% of respondents say that infrastructure legislation is likely to pass during the current Congress. 78% of Democrats agree, while 59% of Republicans agree.

→ Likelihood of a “hard” infrastructure bill? A plurality of staffers (40%) believes only a “hard” infrastructure bill will pass, and the American Families Plan and American Jobs Plan will fall by the wayside. 46% of Republicans think just hard infrastructure will pass, and only 34% of Democrats agree.

→ 54% of senior Hill aides say that it’s likely that Congress will boost funding to the IRS to collect taxes to help pay for the infrastructure package. Republicans are skeptical — just 42% think it’s likely, 29% say it’s unlikely. 

→ Fewer than 50% of Democratic aides think Congress will hike the capital gains tax to pay for an infrastructure package.

Economy

The gulf between the two parties is especially wide on economic issues. The partisan splits on these next couple of questions were huge.

→ Just 15% of Democratic aides say their boss is worried about the impact of spending on inflation. 94% of Republican aides say their boss is concerned. 

→ 99% of Republican staffers say that their bosses believe current unemployment benefits harm the labor market. 47% of Democratic aides say they help the labor market. 

Lobbying

In this edition of The Canvass, we asked our respondents about the most effective industry lobbyists on Capitol Hill. 

Our respondents also said that conversations with constituents are more influential than conversations with lobbyists. 

Word on the Hill

→ 73% of our respondents believe that Republicans will likely control the House in the next Congress. When asking Republicans, that number goes up to 99%. More than half of Democrats (52%) believe that their party will keep control of the House, but it’s only a slight majority.

→ 75% of respondents say that Democrats will keep control of the Senate, up five percentage points since last month. 86% of Democrats agreed, and 63% of Republicans agreed.

→ 76% of Republicans believe that an endorsement from former President Donald Trump is still valuable to a re-election campaign. That sentiment was pretty much shared between both chambers. 77% of Republican House staffers and 72% of Republican Senate staffers agreed.

→ Who is the biggest rising star of the Democratic freshman class? Sen. Raphael Warnock (Ga.) was the clear standout here — 49% of respondents believe Warnock gets that nod. 30% said Sen. Jon Ossoff (Ga.), and 21% said Rep. Cori Bush (Mo.). The question was only asked of Democrats.

→  Who is the biggest rising star of the Republican freshman class? The results for this one were a little tighter. 29% of respondents said Rep. Nancy Mace (S.C.) is the rising star. 25% said Rep. Ashley Hinson (Iowa), and 19% voted Rep. Kat Cammack (Fla.). This question was only asked of Republicans.

Here are some highlights … Here are the full crosstabs